the Lebanons
and a droll old peasant, having seen him for the first time, cried
out, 'I thought the Pasha to be a Pasha, but he's but a man.' And I am
sorry, after having seen the Boss, I can not say as much for him."

Here follows a little philosophising, unbecoming of our Scribe, on men
and names and how they act and react upon each other. Also, a page
about his misgivings and the effort he made to persuade Khalid not to
appear before the Boss. But skipping over these, "we reach the Tammany
Wigwam and are conducted by a thick-set, heavy-jowled, heavy-booted
citizen through the long corridor into a little square room occupied
by a little square-faced clerk. Here we wait a half hour and more,
during which the young gentleman, with his bell before him and his
orders to minor clerks who come and go, poses as somebody of some
importance. We are then asked to follow him from one room into
another, until we reach the one adjoining the private office of the
Boss. A knock or two are executed on the door of Greatness with a
nauseous sense of awe, and 'Come in,' Greatness within huskily
replies. The square-faced clerk enters, shuts the door after him,
returns in a trice, and conducts us into the awful Presence. Ye gods
of Baalbek, the like of this I never saw before. Here is a room
sumptuously furnished with sofas and fauteuils, and rugs from Ispahan.
On the walls are pictures of Washington, Jefferson, and the great Boss
Tweed; and right under the last named, behind that preciously carved
mahogany desk, in that soft rolling mahogany chair, is the squat
figure of the big Boss. On the desk before him, besides a plethora of
documents, lay many things pell-mell, among which I noticed a box of
cigars, the Criminal Code, and, most prominent of all, the Boss' feet,
raised there either to bid us welcome, or to remind us of his power.
And the rich Ispahan rug, the cuspidor being small and overfull,
receives the richly coloured matter which he spurts forth every time
he takes the cigar out of his mouth. O, the vulgarity, the bestiality
of it! Think of those poor patient Persian weavers who weave the
tissues of their hearts into such beautiful work, and of this proud
and paltry Boss, whose office should have been furnished with straw.
Yes, with straw; and the souls of those poor artist-weavers will sleep
in peace. O, the ignominy of having such precious pieces of
workmanship under the feet and spittle of such vulgar specimens of
humanity.